Hi all... first of all this is going to be a long post, so sorry for that.



I've been playing Endless space for a week or so - here's a screenshot of my current game, playing Horatio on serious difficulty, slow speed, normal galaxy, 8 races, turn 77 : http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197996830606/screenshot/542927164241303010?tab=public



Civil Engineer boost is overpowered IMO. +25 industry transforms your game (did this used to be +30?).



Bug : see this screenshot : http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197996830606/screenshot/542927164241482983 . Sometimes when occupying systems you get absurd dust bonuses. In that screenshot, the mouse was over the 343 dust. A save/reload fixes it, so I assume sending a save in is pointless.



Monetary improvements are generally pointless, since they get crippled by your tax rate. I missed this the first few times I played. For those who don't know, you don't get all the money from the tax improvements you build. You get your tax rate percentage from them. So, if your improvement adds +1 dust per populace on 20 people, and your tax rate is 10%, you're breaking even by building it. At a lower populace than that, you're losing money by building it.



Happiness and food are the things you need to worry about at the start. I'll often colonize a crappy planet in a system purely for the happiness boost. I basically won't colonize another planet in a system if it means the system drops below "content".



Everyone knows about the bugs with AI fleets flying past yours and in your borders, so I'm not going to go into detail here about them - remember though that you can click on your fleet and engage them, if you're quick enough.



I started off by thinking that planet type was the primary direction a system would go in. I switched to thinking that you could mould any system to do what you want it to (within some obvious limits). Now, I think it's a hybrid of the two. First, a system has to have enough food to grow (quickly if possible). A system with 6 lava planets will not produce anything worthwhile for years without some added growth in the population. A system with 6 arctic planets will provide you with little, without population growth, and you can't build crap. That being said... a system with 6 jungle planets, you're set .



I generally try to whack appropriate planetary upgrades on, ie. tundra/lava=industry, arctic/lava=research, terran/jungle/ocean=food, purely because you get the additional bonuses. I'll often ignore that though, for example in the case of a food heavy/industry light system I'll use industry upgrades. The dust improvement IMO is worthless, though, so I drop arid/deserts on what I feel is needed.



Early on in the game the AI has no defence against beam weapons. Whatever your strategy, it's good going for them, since going for beam weapons also gives you kinetic defence, which the AI uses exclusively for a while.



Ok, I think I'm done for now - Wait....



To developers, financiers, whoever had faith and made this game possible. Thank you for making this game. Seriously, It's amazingly good.



I hope you publish at a higher price, because people will pay it.



Also... no DRM please (steam is DRM to some degree I know, but it provides advantages too).